To Arms!
by Anysia
Summary: Ash and Misty find themselves embroiled in a vicious, bloody, drawnout…practical joke war?
1. Chapter One: It Begins

**_To Arms!  
  
_**

****

Summary: Ash and Misty find themselves embroiled in a vicious, bloody, drawn-out…practical joke war?

A/N: Ah, moving from sappiness to humor. A semi-difficult transition, but I'm going to try. _Bonne chance, _Anysia…

Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo, Game Freak, 4Kids, and probably some other people I'm forgetting. In any case, it's not mine.

_Ages: Ash – 18, Misty – 20, Brock – 23 _

            The bright morning light filtered softly through the bedroom's gauzy curtains, gently illuminating the sleeping girl's peaceful visage. The cheerful chirping of the Pidgeys outside resounded throughout the room and shook the girl from her slumber, coaxing her away from her dreams. 

            Misty groaned a little and slowly opened her eyes. Ah, morning; there was just something about the sunrise and the warbling birds and the…

            …countless Caterpies, Weedles, and Spinaraks all over the bed!

            Misty froze in terror as she observed the bug Pokemon crawling over the comforter, looking—at least in her irrational early-morning logic—like they were preparing to devour her. _Well, _a voice in the back of her head said with a chuckle, _it looks like he's gotten you back for yesterday's little 'peanut butter in the sneakers' trick. _

            "Shut up," she growled through clenched teeth to the little voice. "Okay, now, if I can just make it out of the bed," she said quietly, slowly edging off the bed, "I should be—" Misty let out a terrified scream as a Caterpie casually walked across her left hand. 

            "ASH!"

            Eighteen-year-old Ash Ketchum chuckled inwardly over breakfast as he heard his female traveling companion's panicked screams echoing throughout the house. _Point – Ketchum, he thought with a smirk, turning his attention back to the stack of pancakes before him._

            "Let me guess," the tall, tanned man standing at the stove wearing a lacy pink apron said as he flipped another pancake onto the plate next to him. "The practical joke war continues?"

            "It'll stop when _she _surrenders," Ash said frankly, his mouth full. He smirked again as he heard angry footsteps quickly coming towards the kitchen. "Which, from the sound of it, will not be any time soon."

            "Ashton Ketchum!" Misty yelled furiously as she stormed into the room. "What in the _hell possessed you to __cover my bed with a disgusting array of bug Pokemon?!"_

            "A pair of ruined shoes," he said nonchalantly. "Hey, Brock, these pancakes are really good."

            "_You're the one who started this whole damn thing!" Misty cried, sitting down hard in the chair opposite him at the table and glaring at him. "_I've _just been retaliating!"_

            "'Retaliating' my ass!" Ash yelled back. "You just blew this whole thing out of proportion! If you had a sense of _humor_, we wouldn't be having this conversation!"

            "Is that so?!"

            "Yeah!"

            Brock lifted his eyes skyward in mute supplication as his two friends continue to argue. It had definitely been a long week, and he knew that the two of them were in no hurry to end what they had started…

**_One week earlier…_**

****

"You're sure you'll be alright, honey?" Delia Ketchum said worriedly as she stood beside the taxicab, looking nervously from the house to her son. "I left a list of emergency numbers on the fridge, and I washed two weeks' worth of clean you-know-what's, just in case you don't have time to do laundry."**__**

            "I'll be fine, Mom," Ash said in a slightly exasperated tone. His mother had won an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii from some women's magazine, and she had asked her son and his friends if they could housesit for the two weeks she was away. The Pokemon Master, along with Misty and Brock, had jumped at the opportunity—mainly because it gave him an excuse to elude his duties for two weeks and spend time goofing off with his friends and just lazing around the house. Yessir, this was going to be a good two weeks. "Go ahead; enjoy yourself."

            Biting her lower lip, Delia finally got into the cab and, waving goodbye to her house-sitters, headed off to her vacation.

            Grinning impishly, Ash laughed and charged into the house. "And now, two weeks of nothing but fun and games!" he cried, throwing himself onto the couch and turning on the TV. 

            "I've got a complete index of all the Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys in Kanto!" Brock cried excitedly, grabbing the cordless phone from its cradle. 

            "I don't think so, boys," Misty said frankly as she entered the house behind the two boys. She frowned a little as she switched off the TV and grabbed the phone away from Brock. "Ash's mom left us a list of chores she needs done around the house, and I promised her that we'd do a little housework while we're here."

            "Aw, come on, Mist," Ash whined. "We have _two weeks _to get all that stuff done; why can't we relax a little first?"

            "You have _two weeks to relax," the redheaded girl retorted, thrusting a mop into his hands. "Now, we're going to work."_

            Ash scowled as he watched Misty relegate a series of chores to a far-less-annoyed Brock. _Well, that makes sense, he thought. __Brock's basically spent his entire life as a housekeeper; of course he doesn't mind this kind of thing. Ash, on the other hand, certainly _did _mind having his TV time cut into by a certain loud-mouthed, awkward, skinny redhead who really had no authority over him._

            Not that she was really _that _awkward anymore, he noted with a sly glance in her direction. No, in the past few years, Misty had filled out _very _nicely, if he did say so himself. Not that he was exactly checking her out or anything, he mentally reassured himself; he was just a teenage boy, with all the raging hormones that came with the territory. Still, she was now very curvy, with her once-shoulder-length hair grown long, down to the middle of her back, in fact. _Any guy would look at her. __Yeah, that's it._

            A swift knock on the head brought him down to earth—quite literally, as the force from the blow sent him falling face-first into the carpet. "Start working," Misty said in a tight, angry voice from her position above him. She sat down upon the sofa and watched him with an annoyed expression. 

            "And what exactly is _your _job?" Ash asked snidely, filling up a bucket in the sink and preparing to mop the kitchen floor.

            "_I am supervising."_

            "I'll frickin' supervise _you_," he muttered.

            "I _heard that!"_

Ash sighed and flopped down upon his bed. Misty had kept him and Brock busy with housework for _four straight hours_, finally allowing the two a break after Ash complained that his arms were going to fall off. "But just a little break," she had warned them. "You've still got to clean the bathrooms." 

            _Power-tripping bitch… he thought angrily, placing a pillow over his face and enjoying the quiet darkness. __Someone should really knock her down a peg or two… Beneath the pillow, a grin slowly spread across Ash's face. Jumping up from the bed, Ash tiptoed silently to the bathroom down the hall, where an unsuspecting Misty was currently taking a shower. Quietly humming the theme from _Mission___: Impossible, the dark-haired youth slowly turned the knob to the (surprisingly unlocked) bathroom. He choked a little on the excessive steam, then made his way to the towel rack, being as quiet as possible so as not to alert the showering girl behind the Jigglypuff-printed shower curtain to his presence. __And now to carry out my cleverly-crafted plan…Shooting a darting glance back at the shower, he quickly yanked the towel off the rack and, stopping only to grab the spare towels from off the hamper in the corner and reaching in to grab the clothes she had been wearing, ran out of the room._

            Misty had been in the middle of washing her hair when she heard the door quietly open. She was prepared to scream at the intruder when the flash of black revealed it to be Ash. Smirking inwardly, Misty continued her shower, allowing him to believe that his black T-shirt and cargo pants combo blended in perfectly with the bathroom's off-white décor. Really, she supposed she should be feeling a bit modest, having her best friend (and longtime crush) in the bathroom while she was in the shower, but after spending eight years on the road with him, sharing the closest of quarters, she couldn't bring herself to be shy. _Besides, she thought a bit wickedly, __if you'd want anyone to see you like this…Misty shook her head in disbelief. Had she really just thought that? About Ash?! She crossed her arms against her bare chest a bit self-consciously. _Calm down, girl, _she mentally chastised herself, reaching over to turn down the water temperature. _

            Misty began to rinse out the crème rinse when she saw Ash quickly pull her towel off the rack and quickly exit the bathroom with it and the other towels in the corner. "Ash!" she yelled furiously, jumping out of the shower with her hair still soapy and preparing to give chase before realizing her state of undress and diving back into the tub. "I'm gonna kill him!"

            Ash sat in his now-locked bedroom and glanced at the neatly folded towels, laughing aloud at the current situation. He realized that when Misty _did catch up with him, as she most certainly would, he was as good as dead, but for now he was content to simply revel in the fact that he had finally one-upped her. Hell, maybe tomorrow she'd be able to laugh about this—assuming she wasn't still stuck in the bathroom. _

            "ASH!" Misty's furious voice called from the other side of the door. "Give me my towel _right now _or I swear to God, I will _kill _you!"

            Ash began to make a semi-humorous retort before realizing that he had taken every towel in the bathroom, along with her dirty clothes. That was, of course, the point—to strand her in the bathroom with absolutely nothing to wear. He'd eventually stroll by and toss a towel into the room, but not before letting her sit for awhile. But now, she had exited the room on her own, which _meant… _

            _She's naked out there?! Ash rushed over to the door and tore it open, only to see a very angry (and very soaked) Misty—standing before him wrapped in the shower curtain, the cheerful-looking Jigglypuffs upon the clear plastic obscuring certain parts of her body from his view. "Towel. Now," she said through clenched teeth. "This plastic chafes." _

            "Chafes _where?" Ash said wickedly, handing her a fluffy white towel. He was rewarded with a harsh slap for his efforts._

            Three o'clock in the morning. A loud series of snores emanated from Ash's bedroom, where the six-foot-tall Pokemon Master lay sprawled out upon his bed, mouth wide open. In his sound state of sleep he was unaware of the pajama-clad woman slowly making her way towards him, some kind of electronic device in her hands. Smirking, Misty kneeled next to his bed, setting the Walkman next to her and slipping the headphones onto his ears. She slowly slipped the tape, with the words 'VAN HALEN' written upon it in black marker, into the player and, stopping to turn the volume up as far as it could go, hit 'play' and ran out of the room.

            Ash woke up with a start, his mouth open in a silent scream as he clutched the headphones to his ears in shock. Shaking from the sudden eardrum-shattering noise, he threw down the still-blaring headphones and breathed hard. "That…was not fun to wake up to," he said, panting. "Ugh…" His attention was suddenly drawn to the laughing figure standing in the doorway. "Huh?"

            "Good morning, Ash," Misty said with mock-cheeriness, flipping on the light. "Enjoying a little light night music?"

            "Misty!" he growled, launching himself out of bed and angrily striding over to her.

            "Consider this payback for your little shower stunt earlier," she said with a smile, turning on her heel and starting back to her bedroom. 

            "Lemme tell ya, Mist," Ash yelled, running out into the hallway. "This is war! You hear me? To arms, I say!"

            Misty still smiled. She stopped at her door and turned to regard him with an air of amusement. "Bring it on."

**_To be continued…_**

Well, what do you think? Should I continue this one or not? Actually, I'm having a lot of fun with it, so it'll probably be continued anyway, but I'd appreciate your input. And anyone who realizes what source I ripped the 'Van Halen' scene from gets…um…my undying respect? I dunno. R/R, s'il vous plait. 


	2. The Better Person

**_To Arms!  
  
_**

****

Summary: Ash and Misty find themselves embroiled in a vicious, bloody, drawn-out…practical joke war?

A/N: I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter. I wasn't really _busy, _per se; I was actually lounging around the house in my pajamas, eating Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup ice cream and watching crappy _Lifetime _movies.

I got a review from cultnirvana! _Two of them! ME! Sorry, but she's been one of my absolute favorite authors for awhile now, so that __really made my day. _

Also, Erina-chan reviewed "J'attendrai". If you haven't read her stories yet, close this window and peruse them _now_. (I am not worthy!)

I should probably note that Ash (and possibly Misty) may seem a bit OOC, but since these are the characters' older personas, there's really no definite rule about how they act. Artistic license…how I love thee…

Props to Ben Johnson and Optimus Magnus for getting the 'Van Halen' reference (_Back to the Future_).

Disclaimer: see chpt. 1

----------

Brock glanced nervously at the two people sitting in moody silence at the breakfast table, shooting vicious glares at each other between mouthfuls of cereal. He wasn't exactly sure what had occurred in the middle of the night, but he knew that it involved much screaming and cursing. "So…anything interesting happen last night?" Brock asked hesitantly as he sat down in the chair across the table from them.

"Sorry, Brock, could you repeat the question?" Ash asked sarcastically. "I'm having a little trouble _hearing _since some crazy bitch came into my room and blasted Van Halen into my eardrums at a mega-decibel level."

Misty rolled her eyes a little but remained silent.

"Uh, okay…" Brock said nervously, not at all comfortable with the thick tension hanging between his two traveling companions. 

"Well," Ash began, getting up and dropping his bowl with a loud 'clank' into the sink, "if anyone needs me, I'll be in the shower."

"Make sure you remember to bring a towel," Misty said in a mock-cheery voice, smiling dangerously as he left the kitchen. 

"Okay, now that Ash is gone, you wanna tell me just what the hell is happening between you two?" Brock asked seriously, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning back in his chair.

"Ash is being a complete asshole, that's what," Misty informed him, pouring herself another bowl of Frosted Flakes. "Last night, he stole all the towels out of the bathroom while I was in the shower and left me without a stitch of clothing."

"And where was _I _when this happened?" Brock said jokingly. "Kidding, kidding!" he quickly amended as he observed that telltale dangerous glint in Misty's eyes. "Seriously, Mist, he was probably just trying to get you back for being such a slave-driver yesterday; you were working him pretty hard."

Misty sighed a little and rested her chin in her hand. "I really don't _mean _to be so hard on him; it just sort of always ends up that way."

"Why don't you just apologize?" he asked. 

"Are you _kidding_?! Apologize to _Ash_? No way, Brock; I refuse to let him have that kind of satisfaction. Besides, this whole thing's his fault."

"Who cares whose fault it is? You have to be the mature one here; we both know there's no way Ash is."  
Misty frowned a little as she grudgingly admitted to herself that Brock was probably right. "…okay, I'll apologize." She grinned a little. _I got the last laugh, anyway._

----------

Ash furrowed his brow as he distractedly lathered the shampoo into his dark locks. _I've got to get her back somehow_, he thought to himself, so immersed in his thoughts that he failed to notice that he was using his mother's strawberry-scented shampoo. _But how? _He let out a low growl of frustration. _Let's see…it has to be thoroughly humiliating—that's a given. But I don't want to really **hurt her…yes, the key word here is definitely "humiliation". **_

For some reason, try as he might to keep his mind on the task at hand, his thoughts kept drifting back to that incredibly alluring mental image of his dream girl standing before him, dripping wet, clad in only a slightly frosted shower curtain. Ash rested his head against the cool tile of the shower, imagining Misty seductively pushing him into the bedroom, slowly peeling off the curtain—

"Damn it, Ash, would you hurry up in there?! I have to talk to you!"

Ash's eyes flew open as he realized just _where his mind had been. __Way to ruin a fantasy, Mist, he thought with a deep sigh, begrudgingly switching off the water and stepping out of the shower. "I'll be out in a minute, Misty!" he yelled back, making sure to inject just the right amount of annoyance into his voice. Getting Misty mad in just the right way was a very delicate operation. __Almost an art form, Ash mused as he wrapped a towel around his waist. _One that's taken me…oh, eight years to master. __

"Now, Ash!"

Smirking a little (and still more than a bit restless from his little 'shower fantasy', but he was willing to chalk that up to too much steam in the room at this point), Ash nonchalantly unlocked the door and strode out of the bathroom. "Yes?" he said in an amused tone, fully expecting some barely coherent noises of shock and indignation to come from Misty's mouth when she realized that he was only wearing a towel.

She didn't even bat an eyelid. "I wanted to talk about last night," she said frankly, leaning against the wall. 

"Don't you have anything to say about this?" he asked expectantly, motioning to his terrycloth-ed lower region. 

"About what?"

"My…state of undress?"

"Ash," Misty said in that ominous tone that indicated she was quickly losing her patience, "I honestly don't care."

Her words hit him like a ton of bricks. _She doesn't **care**?!  he thought incredulously. __I'm standing here half-naked and she's completely unaffected?! Well…I guess it shouldn't exactly make her throw herself into my arms…but I did expect at least a **little **shock. Although I think I could've handled the former…damn it, what reaction did I want out of this again?_

"Hey," Misty said, annoyance creeping into her voice. "Deal with your own inner turmoil or whatever later. Right now, we have to settle this little score between us before it gets out of hand."

"Okay, I'm listening," Ash said, trying to keep his thoughts chaste for the time being.

Taking a deep breath, Misty began. "I realize that we've been at each other's throats since yesterday morning, and I know that it was at least partly my fault. So I just wanted to—" She stopped in mid-sentence as she observed that infuriatingly cocky expression upon Ash's face. She grit her teeth and suppressed the urge to reach out and physically remove it. _Be the bigger person, Misty, she thought to herself. "I just wanted to—"_

"Hey, Mist," Ash said in a sickeningly sweet voice, placing an arm around her shoulders and smiling down at her condescendingly. "It's okay; you don't have to say it. I know this whole thing was your fault; you don't have to tell me."

SMACK!

Down in the kitchen, Brock stopped loading the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher just long enough to fleetingly glance at the ceiling. _Ash, you just don't know when to quit, do you? he thought, chuckling to himself._

"_My _fault?!" Misty yelled angrily, forcefully removing Ash's arm from her shoulders. "You're the one who stranded me _naked _in the bathroom!"

"I never would have done it if you hadn't turned into the Neo-Nazi of Housekeeping!"

"Well, _excuse me _for trying to make things a little easier on your mother!"

"Forget your stupid apology!"

"I never even _said it_!"

"Well…I don't accept it, anyway!"

"Idiot!"

"Bitch!"

The two simultaneously glared at each other and stormed off—Ash to his bedroom, Misty to the kitchen. "Better person, indeed!" the furious redhead yelled as she sat down at the kitchen table, scowling viciously. "It's kind of hard _not_ to be the better person when the other person you're dealing with has the intellect of a _toenail!"_

A few moments of silence passed, broken only by Misty's indignant huffs. Finally, Brock turned back from the dishwasher and, smiling sympathetically, noted, "I'm guessing it didn't go too well?"

----------

Misty yawned as she fell upon the bed in the guestroom that was her home for the next two weeks. She had spent the entire day meticulously weeding the garden and tilling the soil in the backyard. Misty would have much rather preferred an _indoor _job, given her rather strong aversion to bugs, but _he _had been inside, and she didn't want to even _look at him, much less risk another encounter with him._

"I can't believe the nerve of him," she said irritably, reaching for her blue-and-white striped pajamas. "Saying that this whole thing was _my _fault. Well, he's going to learn that it's not very wise to go up against Misty Waterflower when it comes to war. Just wait until—" She let out a shriek as she pulled on the pajama bottoms. "Ash..." she said, trembling with barely suppressed rage, "I am going to kill you."

The bastard had coated the lining of her pajamas with shaving cream.

----------

_I really do apologize for how long it took me to write this chapter, but I was actually in a bit of a block for a while there. This story is probably going to end up being four or five chapters long instead of three, as I had originally intended, but I'm having way too much fun to really give a damn about length. Reviews greatly appreciated, as usual._


	3. Of KoolAid and Peanut Butter

**_To Arms!  
  
_**

****

Summary: Ash and Misty find themselves embroiled in a vicious, bloody, drawn-out…practical joke war?

A/N: Thanks again to everyone who reviewed; it makes me feel like this isn't just a gigantic waste of my time. I mean, I'd do it even if I didn't get any response at all, but, ya know, it's such a great perk.

This chapter is dedicated to Metal Mewtwo, who remains my favorite reviewer! _Merci pour tout! _(Thanks for everything!)

I have officially become the shout-out whore! g

One last note—though, as usual, this chapter does deal with humor on the whole, there is some criminal sappiness towards the end. 

Disclaimer: see chpt. 1

----------

Ash whistled a jaunty little tune as he slung the fluffy pink towel over his shoulder and headed to the bathroom, shooting a cocky smirk at Misty as he passed her in the hallway. "I take it you found my little surprise in your pajamas last night?" he called over his shoulder, not bothering to suppress his self-congratulatory grin. 

"As a matter of fact, I did," Misty responded in an eerily calm tone, a rather frightening smile slowly spreading across her face. "Have fun with your shower." With that maddening grin still in place, she retreated back into her room.

_Now I **know she's up to something**_, Ash thought warily as his bare feet met the cool tile of the bathroom floor. _But what?__ He made a great effort to inspect every square inch of the bathroom, trying desperately to interpret Misty's far-too-innocent comment. But try as he might, he could find nothing; she hadn't attempted to return his first trick and had left all the towels in the bathroom, she hadn't coated the tub with Vaseline so he'd unceremoniously fall flat on his ass, and she hadn't drilled a hole in the door to keep it from closing or locking properly. _

"Maybe I'm just being paranoid," he muttered aloud, shedding his clothing and stepping into the shower. He carefully observed the temperature gauge. "Well, she didn't switch the labels; hot is still hot and cold is still cold." Ash reached up and firmly grasped the shower head. "And she didn't loosen this, either." He slowly scanned the bathroom one last time before drawing the shower curtain closed and starting the water. "Now for a nice, relaxing—" 

Ash let out a sharp cry as he realized that the water rushing out was _blue_. "Oh, _shit!" he swore, reaching over and cutting off the water. He groaned a little as he observed the blue liquid snaking over his entire body, staining his skin. "What __is this stuff? Wait…" He reached up and, with one swift, fluid motion, pulled the shower head off, his eyes widening as he observed a small mound of partially-coagulated blue Kool-Aid resting within it. _

---------

'_Out grocery shopping.__ Be back in about an hour. Try not to kill each other. --Brock'_

Misty frowned at the scrawled Post-It message on the fridge. "Great; guess I have to make my own lunch," she said with a sigh, reaching into the refrigerator and pulling out a small vacuum-pack of tuna.

"MISTY!"

She didn't even bother to hide her ear-to-ear grin as she heard Ash's furious cry. Nonchalantly turning to face the towel-clad, blue-streaked man before her, she simply said, "Consider this payback for the shaving cream incident."

"Goddamn it, Misty, I'm _blue_, and _sticky_, and I smell like some kind of weird blueberry concoction! This is _disgusting_!"

"Maybe if you weren't so immature we could've made up yesterday and called a truce!" she snapped back, crossing her arms indignantly across her chest. "But _no_, you have to make a complete _ass _out of yourself and actually have the nerve to blame this whole thing on _me!" _

"That's enough!" Ash growled, rushing over and angrily grabbing her by the arms. "You know _why _this war started? You really wanna know?"

"I know perfectly well why!" Misty said, matching his ferocity. "You're an idiot!"

"Damn it!" he swore, pushing her up against the wall. "Stop being so goddamned stubborn, Mist!"

Silence permeated the room for a few moments, broken only by the heavy breathing of the two figures in a rather strange embrace, shooting deadly glares at each other. 

The fury in Misty's eyes calmed a bit, replaced by what seemed to be curiosity. She gingerly reached out and drew her fingers across the blue streaks on his muscled chest. "Maybe it has gotten a bit out of hand…" she whispered in a voice that she barely recognized as her own. Their current position—Ash's arms were pinning her lithe frame to the wall—seemed to have ignited some long-suppressed desire in her. 

Ash gulped audibly as he felt Misty's fingers brush against his skin. _What is she **doing**? _he thought incredulously. The logical part of his mind was shouting at him to pull away, but his emotions seemed to have complete control over his movement, for he remained still.

Was it possible? Could she possibly return those feelings that he had successfully kept hidden for over five years? "Misty…" he choked, his voice catching and his throat constricting, preventing him from saying anything more.

At the sound of her name, Misty retracted her fingers and stared up at the inquisitive dark brown eyes observing her intently. "Uh…Ash?" she asked hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

_Only one way to find out_, he thought, bracing himself and taking a deep breath.

"Ash? What are you…" Misty felt her breath leave her in a whoosh of air as she realized that Ash had closed his eyes and was leaning in towards her. She was a bit surprised to feel her heart pounding; was he actually attempting to do what she thought he was? _Stop trying to logic it out and enjoy it_, her mind advised. Smiling faintly, Misty's own eyes fell shut as she felt Ash's breath brush against her lips—

"Hey! I knew you guys would get to this eventually!"

The two flew apart as quickly as if they'd been struck by lightning, both blushing furiously at the interruption—a grinning Brock with both arms full of grocery bags. "Hope I didn't come in right before something…_important," he said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. _

Ash and Misty slowly looked at each other, then turned away, blushing two shades darker.

"I…uh…have to go get cleaned up," Ash stammered, trying to wipe the blue streaks from his arms. He scowled at the still-grinning-like-an-idiot-Brock. _Time to put the mask back on, _he thought inwardly. "Misty hasn't strayed very far from her 'crazy bitch' routine; she put blue Kool-Aid mix in the shower head before I got in." He spread his arms so Brock could see the dried trails of the blue liquid across his body. "As you can see, it worked pretty well."

"'Crazy bitch'?!" Misty shouted indignantly, reaching over and whapping him over the head with the tuna packet she had left on the counter. "You're forgetting that at the moment this 'crazy bitch' is the executor of the last trick! _I'm _winning!" 

"Like hell! This isn't over yet!"

"Bring it on, _Ashy-boy_!"

Brock raised an eyebrow curiously as his two companions were once again thrust headlong into another vicious argument. Was it just his imagination, or had they been dangerously close to a passionate liplock when he had walked in? Shaking his head, he began to unload the groceries. _Oh, well. Maybe one day they'll learn…_

"Is eighteen your age or your IQ?!"

"Oh, real original, Misty! Did Psyduck help you come up with that one?"

_Then again…_

----------

_I almost kissed her. _

_I, Ash Ketchum, almost kissed Misty Waterflower—my best friend of eight years._

_Dammit__, Brock, your timing really sucks, you know that?_

Ash stared blankly at the ceiling from his lazed position on his bed. _So close_, he thought with a small frown. _I'll never be that close again. _

He and Misty hadn't spoken since the rather confusing incident earlier that day; she spent the day reading some crappy Harlequin romance novel, and he finally completed some long-put-off paperwork for the Pokemon League. 

_"I'm winning!"_

The memory of Misty's bold declaration came back to him in a flash. _That's right_, he reminded himself. _This is war. You can't allow emotions to get in the way of a potential victory. _As much as he cared for Misty, Ash found himself unable to surrender his pride and concede defeat. 

Suddenly, it came to him—the ultimate way to pay Misty back for that humiliation earlier! Grinning to himself, Ash leapt out of bed and silently gathered some of the extra Pokeballs he kept in his room. "It's payback time, Mist," he whispered, tugging on his official Pokemon Master jacket. Casting a glance at the wall that separated himself from the impossibly infuriating redhead in the neighboring room, Ash felt a slight twinge in his heart.

For a fleeting moment, he could almost imagine what it would feel like to have his lips on hers.

Shaking his head, he began to pull on his favorite sneakers but let out a strangled cry as he felt some kind of strange substance in them. Ash growled low in his throat as he pulled out his left foot to see it coated in a thick layer of peanut butter. _She put **peanut butter **in my favorite shoes! _he fumed silently. _Well, at least I don't have to feel guilty about this anymore. Quickly changing his socks and shoes, Ash slipped downstairs and silently made his way out of the house._

He had some bugs to catch.

----------

The silent figure cloaked in the shadows by the door watched him go. Chuckling softly, she tossed her loose red hair over her shoulders and slid the deadbolt into place. "Goodnight, Ash," she said wickedly, laughing as she headed back up to her room for the night.

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_And so we return to the beginning! The allusion to peanut butter and insects is, as most of you will probably notice, a throwback to the first few paragraphs of Chapter One. Everything's beginning to come full circle._

_In case anyone's curious, yes, I have done the Kool-Aid trick myself; the victim was my elder sister. It worked incredibly well, if I may say so, but, alas, my mother failed to see the humor in the situation and grounded me for a month._

_I'd also like to note that I the reference to Misty reading a Harlequin romance novel is kind of a dig at the scene between Ash and her in the kitchen; I kept thinking, "Ah, geez, is this sappy or **what**?" as I was writing it. Maybe in the next chapter I'll work in the phrase "bodice-ripping". _

_C&C welcome. R&R. (Hooray for ampersands!)_


	4. To the Victor Goes the Spoils

**_To Arms!  
  
_**

****

Summary: Ash and Misty find themselves embroiled in a vicious, bloody, drawn-out…practical joke war?

A/N: Yes, I too was beginning to notice that quite a bit of the story has taken place in the bathroom. I'm going to chalk it up to the vast amount of mischief one can accomplish on their desired target while said target is taking a shower. There's just far too much fun to be had.

All things must come to an end, and this is the last chapter of "To Arms!". Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and made this story as much fun to write as it, hopefully, was to read.

Disclaimer: see chpt. 1

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_(We now end our two-and-three-quarters-chapters-long flashback and return to the present time.)_

"Th-that is just _it_, Ash!" a red-faced Misty screamed, scratching frantically at her arms, which were still itching like crazy from the bugs crawling over her body. "You have finally crossed the line!" 

"Oh, like covering me in blue Kool-Aid wasn't just a bit _psychotic of you?" Ash retorted angrily, slamming his fist down upon the table. _

"That's enough, you two!" Brock interjected, finally stepping between his two fuming charges. "I am getting sick and tired of your childish arguing! While I admit that it's been pretty damn hilarious sometimes, this really has gone far enough. You guys have been friends for far too long to allow this to keep going on. Now I want you two to apologize. You too, Misty, 'cause for once it's not just Ash who's acting like a four-year-old."

Ash huffed indignantly but remained silent, casting a slightly annoyed glance at Misty.

"If you'll _remember_," Misty replied curtly, returning Ash's look, "I already tried to apologize once, but Captain Brain Damage here just had to inflate his ego and ruin it." 

Brock sighed angrily. _It's hopeless with these two. Maybe I should just let them kill each other. _"Wait a minute!" he said suddenly, snapping his fingers. "I can't believe I overlooked this until now!" Grabbing the message pad and pen from next to the phone, he began to write, occasionally looking from Ash to Misty and then scratching down a few figures. 

Ash and Misty looked at each other, shrugging their shoulders. "Um, Brock? What are you doing?" Ash ventured, leaning across the kitchen table to try and see what his squinty-eyed friend was writing. 

"Ta-da!" Brock cried with a flourish, ripping the sheet of paper from the pad just as Ash caught a glimpse of the title. 

"_War of the Idiots_?" Ash cried indignantly. "What the hell are you doing, Brock?"

Brock chose to ignore Ash's anger and slid the paper across the table. "Take a look; this is how we're going to settle this childishness once and for all."

After a brief tug of war that resulted in one of the corners of the paper being harshly ripped off, Ash and Misty held the paper between them and began to read:

**WAR OF THE IDIOTS**

_Ash Ketchum (Idiot A)  v. Misty Waterflower _

_As of 19 August, the score is as follows:_

_Ash: 3 (removal of towels while Waterflower was in shower; placement of shaving cream in her pajamas; placement of various bug Pokemon over her bed while she was asleep)_

_Misty: 3 (blasting heavy metal music into Ketchum's ears while he was asleep; placing dry Kool-Aid mix in shower head before he got in, leaving the subject covered with blue streaks; filling his shoes with peanut butter [crunchy]) _

_The observer of this war proposes that, as the combatants are tied at the present time, the next person to carry out a successful practical joke will be declared the winner of the aforementioned war. Also, the loser will become the winner's unconditional slave for exactly one week. The observer asks that the combatants agree to the above conditions and sign their names below, assuming that they have stopped glaring at each other long enough to **read **the above conditions._

The two were silent for a moment after they finished reading. "What exactly does that _mean_?" Ash asked curiously.

"It _means_ that the next one of you who carries out a successful prank is the winner," Brock said, a bit annoyed that he even had to explain such a simple thing. "Don't tell me you guys haven't been keeping track?" At the puzzled looks on his friends' faces, he sighed and shook his head. "Look, just forget it. Just—hurry up and get this stupid thing over with. Preferably before lunch, okay?"

Ash frowned a bit. Though he was almost sure he could win this thing, the idea of being Misty's slave for an entire week was definitely not appealing; after that stunt he had pulled yesterday in the kitchen, he was pretty sure she was ready to kill him, and he didn't even want to begin to imagine the kind of humiliating things she'd subject him to if she got to control him.

"What are you waiting for?" Misty's impatient voice cut through his doubtful thoughts, and he observed with a bit of surprise that she had already signed the paper. _Guess she's not nervous about this. _Taking the pen from her, he signed his name in the large, wobbly handwriting of a kindergartener. Misty frowned as she observed the signature, shaking her head a bit at his poor penmanship. "Here you go, Brock," she said, handing the paper to their conflict's new moderator of sorts.

"Okay, then," Brock began, folding the paper and tucking it into his pants pocket. "Let's make this even more interesting; you guys have until midnight to give me a winner, and they must have physical proof of their victory." He smirked. "Knowing the kind of tricks you guys tend to pull, I'm guessing that won't be a problem. I set you to your task." Laughing, he mocked a salute as the two trainers cast one final glare at each other and separated to different sides of the house.

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 At ten o'clock that night, Misty sat uncomfortably at the paneled desk in the guest room, scribbling down the day's events in her Staryu-patterned diary. Its corners were bent, the cover marred by pen marks, the edges of the pages smudged with dirt; this diary had been with her since the first day of her Pokemon journey—that fateful day when she had hooked on her fishing line a reckless young boy that would turn out to be her best friend, closest companion, and first and only love. She and Ash had been to Hell and back together. 

_I think we're currently in the former_, she observed with a small sigh, closing the book, bulging with the addition of added pages after the original blue watermarked sheets had long since been endowed with the task of keeping the young girl's secrets from prying eyes. Misty had exactly two hours to put one over on Ash, and she had used up everything in her artillery. Earlier, she had attempted the old 'bucket-of-water-suspended-over-the-door' trick, but Ash had unfortunately picked that day to finally become intelligent and had kicked open the door, sending the water splashing over the floor and his left shin, but nowhere else. 

Not that Ash hadn't failed in his attempts to win as well; his attempts to strew her underwear across the front lawn for passing motorists and curious passerby to see had been met with pain—from the carefully-placed armed mousetraps she had set in the drawer. The second she heard the telltale metal 'snap!', followed by a yelp and a string of curses, she was upstairs, leaning against the doorframe of the guest room and laughing hysterically. 

_I really don't know who's going to win this, _she thought warily. _What if neither of us pulls this off?_

Suddenly, an idea so perfect, so delicious, popped into her head. "I've got it!" she said with a laugh. "This is it! I'm going to win!" Crouching silently, she tiptoed out of the room and, stopping to grab a few things from Ash's room, headed downstairs to begin her master plan.

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Ash lay silently in his bed, a hot pack balanced on his forehead. The last week had been particularly trying for him, and he now had a splitting headache to show for him. He could only pretend to hate the love of his life so ferociously for so long before he just needed a break. Stealing her underwear would have been a great trick if it had worked, he mused, trying to convince his rather loud subconscious mind that it wasn't just a thinly-veiled excuse to see what kind of underwear Misty wore. 

It wasn't working too well. 

Ash sighed and shut his eyes; there was only an hour and a half left until the war drew to a close, and it looked as if he and Misty were going to have to call it a truce—at least, unless Misty managed to pull off one last trick. But to do that, she'd have to break through the lock to his bedroom, since he had no intention of moving until Brock came to tell him that time was up. 

The young Pokemon Master groaned and threw a pillow over his head as he heard the sound of hammering coming from outside. "Damn it, don't the neighbors ever stop their stupid 'home improvement'?" he wondered aloud, his voice muffled by the pillow.

He smiled faintly as he heard someone frantically banging on the door. "Sorry, Misty, I'm not coming out until the stupid war's over."

"It _is_ over, Ash," he heard Brock call from the other side of the door. "And quite ingeniously, if I do say so myself."

"What?!" Ash cried, yanking the pillow off his head and allowing the hot pack to fall to the floor as he leapt off the bed and pulled the door open forcefully. "What do you mean, 'it's over'?"

"Take a look at the front yard and you'll understand," Brock said with a laugh. 

Not even stopping to consider the horrible possibilities, Ash practically flew down the stairs, lunging out the front door to see Misty standing with…Gary Oak?

"What's he doing here?" Ash asked angrily, his ire quickly turning to fear as he noted that his archrival was laughing hysterically and pointing at…a cardboard sign? "What's this?" he asked curiously.

Ash felt all the color drain from his face, his blood turning to ice as he observed just what Misty had done…what horrible, _horrible thing she had called Gary over to see…_

She had staked a picket sign-style poster of him as "Ash-ley" into the ground, illuminated it with a floodlight, and written "I LOVE GARY!" on it in boldface.

Shaking with a mixture of anger, humiliation, and incredible defeat, he sighed strode over to Misty, an absolutely infuriating grin plastered across her face. "I win," she said happily, her smile never wavering. "Okay, you can leave now, Gary; that's all I needed you to see."

"It was worth the trip!" Gary said with a laugh as he headed back to his spacious home. 

"You live five hundred feet away, asshole!" Ash yelled furiously, grabbing a pebble from off the ground and throwing it uselessly at Gary's head. He turned back to the still-smirking Misty. "Okay, yeah, you win," Ash said with a hint of bile in his tone. "Since I'm going to be your slave for the next week, can I at least have one last moment of freedom? And you have to promise you won't hit me."

"That all depends on what you want to do," she informed him, crossing her arms sharply across her chest.

"I already tried once," he informed her, unplugging the spotlight with a quick yank of the cord and uprooting the sign, ripping it in half. "But Brock managed to get in the way the one time I actually had enough courage to even come close."

"What are you—" Misty's breath caught in her throat as she realized that he was talking about yesterday afternoon in the kitchen—when he had tried to kiss her. _He wants to kiss me? _she thought, a bit incredulous at the idea. _He…wants me as much as I've wanted him? Her thoughts ended abruptly as she felt Ash's lips gently descend upon her own. It was a very gentle kiss, one that couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds, but seemed to encompass the world to the two figures locked in that romantic embrace. "I can't believe you finally worked up the nerve to do that," Misty managed to say, still robbed of coherent thought for the time being._

"Neither can I," Ash replied, pulling her into a tight hug. "And I've only been wanting to for the past five years."

Laughing, Misty returned the hug, resting her head on Ash's shoulder. "You should've said something, idiot; I've been crazy about you since I was twelve."

"Please, Mist; I thought you had cooties when I was that young. And when I finally got over my 'girls-are-gross' phase, I was too terrified of you and your mallet to make a move."

"Well," she said softly, wrapping an arm around his waist and leading him back into the house, "I'm glad you finally got over it."

"Who says I have?" he retorted as they stepped inside. "Your temper is beyond frightening; I think I've more gotten used to it than 'over' it."

"Uh, guys?" Brock questioned as he observed Ash and Misty share a quick kiss before starting into the living room. "What's happened with you two?"

"Nothing new, Brock," Ash called over his shoulder. "We're in love; you knew that already."

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"I love Adult Swim," Ash said with a mouthful of popcorn as he and Misty sat snuggled up on the sofa, waiting for the latest episode of _InuYasha__ to begin. "So, now that we're so comfy with each other, I guess you're going to be canceling that little clause that states that I have to be your slave for a week, right?"_

"Guess again, flyboy," Misty said frankly, popping a few kernels into her mouth. "A deal is a deal; you signed the contract."

"But _Misty…_" he whined plaintively, resting his head in her lap. He sat back up when he noticed that the 'puppy-dog eyes' were failing miserably to sway her. "So I guess I should get used to a life of slavery and back-breaking labor for the next seven days?" he asked, sighing and resting his head against the back of the couch.

 "Yes, but you have half an hour to relax. Now shut up!" she yelled, thumping him on the arm and turning up the volume on the TV. "This episode has Sesshoumaru in it!"

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The next day, Misty sat with her feet propped up, chattering away into the phone while absently flipping through an old issue of _Cosmo. "Yes, Mrs. Ketchum, I'm making sure that Ash stays out of trouble. He's been a  perfect gentleman so far." She stumbled a bit as her ottoman sneezed, sending her feet sliding down. "Hold on a minute, Mrs. Ketchum." She pulled her pink-sock-clad feet back up, stopping to lightly tap her footstool on the head. "Try not to sneeze, Ash; it upsets my balance." She smiled at his angry mumbles and turned back to her phone conversation. "Yes, a perfect gentleman."_

|END|

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_I suppose I could have split this chapter into two quite easily, but since I wrote it in one shot, I chose to keep it as a solid chapter that's twice as long as all the others._

_Final thank-you to everyone who reviewed; glad you enjoyed the story._

_I just **had to include a mention of my favorite anime—"InuYasha". I finally got my fansubbed copy of the second movie, and I am very much elated now that I have seen  the much-anticipated Inu/Kag kiss in context of the entire movie—and a very good movie it was. Better than the first, IMO. Less Kikyou in it, at any rate.**_

_There may or may not be a companion piece to this story in which I work in the whole "Speedo-clad Ash as [Misty's] personal cabana boy" fantasy that I mentioned in "Character's Lament", but I am currently at work on "Oatmeal and Mittens", a fic based on another mention in that fic—Ash getting the chicken pox._

_Reviews always appreciated; show me one author who specifically requests that reviews **not be submitted. I don't know any, either.**_


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